Collection: Directories and Documents > Pamphlets

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Title: Lola Montez in Grass Valley (PH 17-1)(Undated) Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Pamphlets Catalog #: PH 17-1 Author: Doris Foley Published: Undated Subjects: Lola Montez, Lotta Crabtree # of Pages: 40 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Metadata By: Shelby Figueroa Printed or handwritten: All printed text Date Scanned: 2024-12-11 14:16:41 Scanned By: Shelby Figueroa Scanning Equipment: CZUR Book Scanner OCR Software Version #: tesseract 5.4.1 Item Sourced From: JPGs First Created: 2025-03-17 05:47:43 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 05:47:43

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 40  

oY 3 [A yar ¥ 7 We . yy ot aa EDITOR’S NOTE: — This material is protected by copyright . ' application for the soon-to-be published book on “Lola Montez in California.” ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS * My gratitude is expressed to the staffs of the Bancroft Library, California State Library, Sacramento State College, Nevada City Library, Recorder’s Office, Nevada County Court House, San Francisco Marine Museum, Society of California Pioneers, Nevada County Historical Society, The California State Historical Society and especially to Fontaine Weitzel, without whose encouragement and assistance this material would never have been completed. PART I “SAN FRANCISCO DEBUT” The strange dual personality of Lola Montez will forever be a subject of debate among writers, psychiatrists and students of human behaviors At times she was gracious, soft-spoken, considerate, kind and even meek tothe point of humility; at othess, daring, violent almost wanton, unsubdued, incorrigible and acting with reckless abandon. \ Robert White in his explanatory remarks on “The . _Life of Lola Montez, “rightly defends the conpledey of her character as appropriate to the period in which she lived; the lack of political rights and of status of women in those days; the lack of opportunity for obtaining an education or engaging in a business career; the superstitions of the era and: the narrowness of social customs, causing a willful strong minded non-conforming woman to rebel against a society that suppressed and held her its captive. Cagernd *) In her autobiography, Peron ne ar uion ela iig-thesterst-few—weeks, one bécomes aware of/her own appraisal, her.impressigy’s and estimation of herself. What the press said /of her during\h¢r sojourn on the\Pacific oes seemed another likely source for a Character ardlysis.\Jt was this, curiosity that led to.a perusal of the California newspapers of 1853 through 1856, andfrom this most “reliable” of sources, iterns were. collected, to. be quoted in_subsequent columns.-of-“The-Trail” during the-next few weeks. _ To best understand the motivation for her retreat . into the mining region, one needs to begin with her arrival and six-week stay in San Francisco. A news item from “The Golden Era,” May 22, 1853 announced: “The world-renouned Lola Montez, Countess of Landsfeldt, arrived in this city on the Northerner.” side-wheeler belonging to the Pacific Mail Steam Ship Company. It arrived in San Francisco from Panama, a 14 1/2 day trip, on Saturday morning, . May 21, 1853, and docked alongside “Long Wharf” a 2000 foot extension into the bay between Sacramento and Clay Streets. There were 450 passengers aboard, 250 of them in steerage, along with275 bags of mail,/the largest consignment to reach California to that date, \ ‘ Among/ the distinguished passengers listed were MadamejLola Montez, Countess de landsfeldt, and companjon; U.S. Consul Thonias.O. Larkin, wife, _ two children and servant, Samuel Brannan, and . be \ + ‘4 ¢ i" === === 2.2.. EE oOOnVn—nrnerorororororoOEOE—— EEE << ~w\ further check-revealed this ship to be the neweat6eo . tom Lola Montez as She Appeared on Her Arrival in California THIS CANVAS was painted by an unknown artist at the time of Lola’s professional engagement in New Orleans just before she came to California. Buried beneath the St. Eaten t Charles Theater at the time of the city’s capture by north. ern troops during the Civil War, it was later exhumed and presented. to Mrs. B. C. Halling of San Francisco, only to be buried again during the earthquake and fire of 1906. — (Courtesy of the Bancroft Library) Patrick Purdy Hull, publisher_of the “San Francisco Whig,” whom-the Countess-married six-weeks later. Lola’s reputation for striking an opponent across the shoulders with whatever weapon was convenient once her wrathful indignation became aroused, had preceded her arrival in the United States. Reporters were known to exaggerate these encounters; the following quote appearing in a San Francisco paper the day after her arrival may have been one of them. “There is no end to Lola Montez’s pranks. Her agent — recently left her, and at the time she heard of his determination to do so, some conversation due to his character then ensued, in which the ‘fair countess’ reflected severely on some of his conduct. Just at this time the gentleman stepped in, and a scene followed. M’lle Lola bestowed on the astonished gentleman divers unmentionable epithets and finally pitched into him, knocked him down with her pretty little fists. One of the bystanders held the ‘gentle lady’ and endeavored to pacify her, but before her fury subsided, she destroyed checks to the amount of $200 to show that filthy lucre was no object to her.” (J. S. Henning, her agent was among the Passengers aboard the Northerner, and waslistedas agentat her debut. May 26. 1853.) z: ae cage.